Will you be buying Physical or Digital?

[Lancelot]

I want to get digital cause I know I wont be asleep at midnight and I'll just want to play it, but also I REALLY like collecting game boxes so I think Physical most likely. That being said I could get both but theres just no point on the switch

 

[neoratz]

physical if i can! i don't really go out much so i don't mind switching between cartridges and i've always had a weird paranoia that my switch might randomly break and i'll lose all my digital save data D:

 

[KeatAlex]

physical if i can! i don't really go out much so i don't mind switching between cartridges and i've always had a weird paranoia that my switch might randomly break and i'll lose all my digital save data D:

See that's my thing on digital, I'm afraid to lose all my save data from it. However 2 years ago I bought Smash Bros 3ds and the cartridge got corrupted after about a year for no reason. It's a double edged sword.

 

[stitchmaker]

Physical for the box artwork.
If it's as good or better than ACNL I'll buy another switch. For that one I'll go digital.

 

[Blue Cup]

physical if i can! i don't really go out much so i don't mind switching between cartridges and i've always had a weird paranoia that my switch might randomly break and i'll lose all my digital save data D:

See that's my thing on digital, I'm afraid to lose all my save data from it. However 2 years ago I bought Smash Bros 3ds and the cartridge got corrupted after about a year for no reason. It's a double edged sword.

I hate to break it to you, but ALL of your Switch save data is stored locally now. Save files are all stored, regardless of the game, on your Switch itself, not on the cartridges. If your Switch randomly breaks, you're going to lose everything anyway unless you have the Online subscription and Cloud Saves enabled, but even then it's not going to save everything. I think the two high profile titles not supported by it are Splatoon 2 and Pokemon Let's Go, though there may be more.

Whether Animal Crossing will be supported by it remains to be seen, but I'm going to imagine it won't for the same reasons as Splatoon and Pokemon: Duplication and rerolls.

 

[Neechan]

I hate to break it to you, but ALL of your Switch save data is stored locally now. Save files are all stored, regardless of the game, on your Switch itself, not on the cartridges. If your Switch randomly breaks, you're going to lose everything anyway unless you have the Online subscription and Cloud Saves enabled, but even then it's not going to save everything. I think the two high profile titles not supported by it are Splatoon 2 and Pokemon Let's Go, though there may be more.

Whether Animal Crossing will be supported by it remains to be seen, but I'm going to imagine it won't for the same reasons as Splatoon and Pokemon: Duplication and rerolls.

So saves can't be configured to be sent to the micro SD card?

 

[Blue Cup]

So saves can't be configured to be sent to the micro SD card?

That's correct. There is no interaction done with the microSD beyond storing digital games. Your save files either stay on the console itself or the cloud service, if one has it.

 

[QueenOpossum]

enleft

So an (x) amount of data/towns on one SD depending on the data limit?
I suppose that is cheaper and more sensible. I haven't even bothered making an account on my Switch yet, so I just assumed it was the same as the 3DS. Guess I'll have to wait and see.

Based on most games, it will be per user.

Based on past Animal Crossing games, I'm going to guess 1 town per user. Its not a fact, just my guess.

 

[Neechan]

That's correct. There is no interaction done with the microSD beyond storing digital games. Your save files either stay on the console itself or the cloud service, if one has it.

Well, darn that really blows wind, at least if you want to have more digital space for games, its an option.

 

[AccfSally]

Physical copy, I'm not a huge fan of the digital ones.

 

[Yeosin]

I'll likely end up with a 1 digital and 1 physical if we can't have multiple saves. Going for digital first though for sure.

 

[Tao]

I'll likely end up with a 1 digital and 1 physical if we can't have multiple saves. Going for digital first though for sure.

Will it work that way though?

As far as I'm aware save data is stored to the system with the Switch, not the cartridge. Save data was stored on the cartridge with the 3DS for physical copies, to the system for digital.

 

[Blue Cup]

^It won't. I feel a lot of people are going to end up throwing away $60 thinking that once this game launches. I can already see it being a consistent complaint about the game throughout its life.

Even though there won't be any split between digital and physical copy save files, the trade off is that you can have up to 8 profiles on your Switch, thus (possibly) 8 different towns to mess with.

Though, I feel like they are going to somehow make all 8 profiles use one central save file, though how exactly I don't have a clue. I once entertained the idea of a neighborhood where the players house is located in a different screen, 1x1 in size, that you can fully customize anyhow you want with furniture in the yard and whatnot. All connected to a larger central area, aka the general town area as we know it. This would allow for 8 player villagers in one town without it feeling cluttered of forcing them all to live in the same house.

 

[KeatAlex]

I hate to break it to you, but ALL of your Switch save data is stored locally now. Save files are all stored, regardless of the game, on your Switch itself, not on the cartridges. If your Switch randomly breaks, you're going to lose everything anyway unless you have the Online subscription and Cloud Saves enabled, but even then it's not going to save everything. I think the two high profile titles not supported by it are Splatoon 2 and Pokemon Let's Go, though there may be more.

Whether Animal Crossing will be supported by it remains to be seen, but I'm going to imagine it won't for the same reasons as Splatoon and Pokemon: Duplication and rerolls.

Jeez, Nintendo what are you thinking?

 

[Blue Cup]

Jeez, Nintendo what are you thinking?

They thought they were combating piracy and hacks as it was save files that opened the door for such things on the 3DS and Wii U. Sucks for them when it ended up being a hardware fault that opened the door to the thing being blown wide open.

 

[AnimalCrossingPerson]

I thought it was just a costs thing? Surely not having to include writable flash memory will cut costs, and those little cartridges are very expensive to manufacture as it is, at least compared to Blu-Ray discs.

 

[Tao]

They thought they were combating piracy and hacks as it was save files that opened the door for such things on the 3DS and Wii U. Sucks for them when it ended up being a hardware fault that opened the door to the thing being blown wide open.

To be fair, Nintendo's system for saving with the 3DS was baffling anyway. I remember the first day I got my first 3DS, it didn't come with an SD card and I didn't know it NEEDED one, so when I tried to play with it on the bus home I couldn't actually play anything since games required an SD card to play and save, despite save data being stored on the cartridge...I just don't understand the logic to that whatsoever. Either save to the SD card or don't make it a requirement, which I guess they've done.


On the other hand, before I knew the Switch saved locally, I bought Breath of the Wild preowned because it was so much cheaper than new. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't see the progress of the last person who owned the game. That was always a fun little moment when I bought a game preowned on previous systems, especially when it was something like a Pokemon game or Animal Crossing. I enjoyed seeing their team and any nicknames they gave them, or exploring their town...Yano, before erasing it all from existence, bringing the 'End Times' to that happy little village.

 

[thecheese103]

I wouldn't mind digital since AC existing is my reason to not ever trade-in the Switch, but I love going physical, always have. I might potentially get both depending on if it's a one-save file type game.

 

[Blue Cup]

I wouldn't mind digital since AC existing is my reason to not ever trade-in the Switch, but I love going physical, always have. I might potentially get both depending on if it's a one-save file type game.

Please read the below quote,

I hate to break it to you, but ALL of your Switch save data is stored locally now. Save files are all stored, regardless of the game, on your Switch itself, not on the cartridges. If your Switch randomly breaks, you're going to lose everything anyway unless you have the Online subscription and Cloud Saves enabled, but even then it's not going to save everything. I think the two high profile titles not supported by it are Splatoon 2 and Pokemon Let's Go, though there may be more.

Whether Animal Crossing will be supported by it remains to be seen, but I'm going to imagine it won't for the same reasons as Splatoon and Pokemon: Duplication and rerolls.

Buying digital and physical won't grand you two towns and they would both read the same save data from your Switch' internal memory.

However as mentioned previously, having 8 user profiles on your Switch might potentially allow for 8 different towns/save files.

I thought it was just a costs thing? Surely not having to include writable flash memory will cut costs, and those little cartridges are very expensive to manufacture as it is, at least compared to Blu-Ray discs.

I'd imagine it's a little of both, actually. But looking at the past consoles and how they were hacked, they all used some form of modified save data to break over the console.

 

[lunaboog]

Definitely physical copy. I pretty much never use my switch and I only have one switch cartridge. I also really like displaying games too.